


the sins of boscha preslow

by UnidentifiedFroggy



Series: oh wow camping [3]
Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: (mentioned) - Freeform, Angst, Aristocracy, Arranged Marriage, Boscha Redemption (The Owl House), Boscha is a bad person, Bullying, But she's trying (kinda), Cutting, Depression, F/F, Heavy Angst, No Fluff in Ch1 but we'll get there eventually, Prostitution, Redemption, Self-Harm, boscha needs to get off her ass and become a better person first, endgame Boschlow but., this is a mess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:46:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28844046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnidentifiedFroggy/pseuds/UnidentifiedFroggy
Summary: It's Boscha Preslow's fifteenth birthday, and she's a bad personSet in the same universe as my other toh fics, though set before them.Endgame Boschlow
Relationships: Amity Blight & Boscha & Skara, Amity Blight/Luz Noceda, Boscha/Willow Park
Series: oh wow camping [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2111727
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	the sins of boscha preslow

Bosch Lynn is born to a prostitute, in a half collapsed shack by the sea. His mother is tall and fierce and beautiful, with dark wavy hair and a long scar leaving her one of her three eyes. They live in that shack for the first three months of Boscha's life. He sits in his cradle in the 'kitchen' and cries silently while his mother beds a multitude of men and women. It storms outside often, and they cower in the basement as their rickety shack somehow collapses even more, his mother not strong enough to cast even the most basic of shield spells. One of his mother's 'guests' is over when it storms once, and he calls her weak. The word doesn't mean anything to two month old Bosch, but it sticks in his head. Weak. The way the man shouts it scares him.

Bosch's mother dies when he is three and a half months old. He later learns it's of a drug overdose, although he's too young to understand at that point. Nobody finds the body until the man who manages her mother’s ‘appointments’ shows up after several missed calls. Bosch is taken into the custody of the Emperor’s Coven, and he makes his way into the foster system of the Boiling Isles. He stays in the Bonesborough Orphanage, with the other weak-parented children. It’s grimy and severely underfunded, and Bosch will grow to hate it more than anything else in the world, but right now he’s barely four months old and hasn’t even said a word.

He lives in the orphanage for nearly six years. He says her first word there, walks for the first time, learns her alphabet and runes. He grows up, and as he matures, he grows to hate it more and more. Bosch is young and impulsive and his view of the world isn’t exactly up to scratch, but he knows one thing - the people in the orphanage are weak, and Bosch is strong. This is not where he belongs, and he must escape sooner or later, for the weak die when the strong triumph.

There is one person in the orphanage who Bosch tolerates, an old Emperor’s Coven veteran who fought in the old wars against the wild witches that now teaches basic runic in the orphanage. She tells Bosch of the heresy of the wild ones, and about power and weakness. She is his mentor, he is her protege, and she molds him into a microscopic version of herself. She reads him the works of the great dictators of the past, and she is the one who tells him to run. A three eyed girl named Boscha will someday learn that this woman was discharged for murdering her own battalion when they showed mercy to a wild witch, but this three eyed boy doesn’t know that. All he knows is that this adult makes sense, and he must follow her orders,

Bosch runs when he is six. It’s on the street, among the wild things of Bonesborough, that he realises he isn't a boy. It makes perfect sense for her to be a girl, so she is. If any of the other weakling urchins try to tell her otherwise, well, Boscha has grown pretty proficient with her shank. Life is alright, but Boscha still wants more. She can’t disappoint her mentor, she must get stronger.

.

When Boscha is seven she is taken in by a rich family. Lert and Veila Preslow are one of the most powerful families on the Boiling Isles, second only to the Blights. It’s a funny story the way she is taken in by them. The Preslow matriarch is out shopping in the fancier parts of the Bonesborough markets when she finds herself cornered in a dark alley with a knife at her throat. She manages to fend off her assailant with magic, but only barely. Normally she’d take the child back to the mansion and put her to work, but having grown up on the streets herself, Veila Preslow respects a good thief. So, she takes Boscha home and tells her husband they have a child.

Boscha is cleaned up and dressed in clothes befitting someone of her standing. It’s a perfect solution for both parties - young Boscha can finally work on getting stronger, and the Preslows can finally have an heir. It’s a dream scenario for the witchling, and she should be overjoyed, so why does she just feel flat? She doesn’t bring it up to her new parents. They’re strong, and so is she. They don’t need to hear her whining, and she doesn’t need to rely on them.

She attends her first party when she’s seven and a half, having lived with the Preslows for three months. She’s told it's a rite of passage, something all noble families do, so she agrees completely. After all, she is not weak, so she will not fight against her new parents. All in the name of power. It’s there, at her very first party, where she meets Amity Blight, her new best friend and the witch she’s going to marry when she comes of age.

They hit it off surprisingly well. Boscha has never had friends, she was alone in the orphanage and on the streets, but her parents have made sure to teach her how to behave like a socially acceptable witch, and she picks it up with ease. Amity is kind, sweet and silly, and she obviously doesn’t like the situation her parents have put her in (neither does Boscha) but she will do what’s best for her future and for her family. The three eyed witch respects that, and thinks they’ll get along well.

She also meets Skara, a fun loving, sociable witch who is a child of one of the lesser aristocratic families of the Boiling Isles. While not necessarily befitting of Boscha’s status, she thinks her parents will tolerate the other witch, and with that worry dissuaded they become fast friends. She doesn’t show it, but deep down she’s glad she’s made friends, especially seeing as she’s starting at Hexside soon. 

She learns magic from her parents’ in house tutor, Miss Aldercoth, and is already fairly proficient for her age, but school is an important part of magical development and more importantly, it’s a way for Boscha to build her social power base and have a network of connections for when she grows up (She ignores the nagging voice in the back of her mind that tells her this isn’t what seven year olds should be thinking about).

.

Boscha first meets Willow Park when she’s eleven. Sure, she’s seen her around, but Boscha has been taught to avoid those below her, so they haven’t exactly interacted. However, they are doing a group project in Advanced Runes, and despite her pleading, instead of being matched with Skara, she’s matched with Willow. Things don’t go well. One afternoon, when talking to her friends she brings it up.  
“Ugh, we have to do a group project in Advanced Runes and I’m stuck with Willow”  
“You mean Half A Witch Willow?” Amity asks with an uncharacteristic hardness in her voice  
“Yeah, I guess” she says, barely holding in her curiosity about Amity’s seeming hatred of the weaker witch   
“Good luck then, you’ll pretty much be working alone with that weakling on your side” the other witch says in a way that makes Boscha uncomfortably certain that’s a line she’s recited before.

Willow doesn’t live up to her nickname. She’s smart and shy, and knows her way around the textbook side of magic in a way unlike anyone but Amity herself (which makes her wonder if the hatred stems from jealousy. Boscha thinks she’s a perfectly capable witch, if a little lacking in spellcasting areas, but she bites her lip and insults Willow regardless. It’s the first time she’s ever stepped into this territory, but something tells her she’ll be doing it a lot. All for power she tells herself. All for power.

And she’s right. Willow becomes the target of teasing and eventually bullying from both her and Amity. Boscha hates herself for it, but she refuses to entertain the possibility of stopping. Her parents would be proud, as would her mentor. She’s strong. To be powerful is to crush others, to dominate them thoroughly. That’s true strength, and Boscha is an exemplar of it. No matter the cost.

.

Boscha hates the human the moment she sees her (or so she tells herself). She’s so obnoxiously kind and forgiving towards everyone and everything, and it makes her skin crawl. She’s upset the balance of Hexside, the power dynamics, everything that Boscha and Amity have worked so hard to cultivate. They’ve only interacted a couple times, and the other girl doesn’t even go to Hexside. It’d be almost admirable, the way one person can shift the balance so much, if Boscha didn’t hate the human’s guts.

And the worst part about it? Amity, Boscha’s partner in crime, second best friend, co-bad girl, is falling to the influence of the human. She’s getting nicer, not picking on Willow or her little friend Augustus as much. It’s disturbing, and it scares Boscha. If Amity can be corrupted, turned against tradition and everything they’ve ever held sacred, then can the rest of their mutual friends? Will Boscha be left all alone? Will she be the weak one?

No. They are weak, succumbing to pitiable things like kindness and love. Titan, Boscha is meant to marry Amity (not that she wants to), to unite the two most powerful noble families on the Boiling Isles. She thought Amity was strong, but here she is, slowly growing weaker. And as the weeks go on it gets more and more pronounced, even more so when the human begins attending school. So Boscha comes up with a solution - to make Luz Noceda’s life a living hell.

She starts small, subtle comments in the hallways, picking on her when her friends are unable to defend her, and slowly ramps up in scale. She corners the human one day after school and beats her to the ground. Boscha knows it’s against the rules, knows it's uncivilized, but Luz Noceda has destroyed her life, ruined everything she’s ever worked for, and she deserves this. And, best of all, she knows that the human is too much of a coward to tell her friends, with Willow and Augustus and Amity and all the rest clueless to Boscha’s tyranny.

But despite the constant attacks, despite the torment, the human keeps on going. She keeps on being kind to Boscha. She keeps her endless supply of optimism and joy, and Amity keeps on falling away from Boscha. The Blight seems to have even made up with Willow, whatever beef they had with each other subsided (Boscha never did learn what it was, but apparently it’s enough for them to get past).

And the pressure from her parents keeps piling up. Her previously unchallenged mastery at potions has been diminished ever since the human showed up, and her little venture of torment hasn’t helped. Her grades are slipping. It's all the human’s fault. She was the pride of the Preslows, the queen of Hexside with Amity at her side and now? She’s a petty bitch seeking revenge. However, Grom’s coming up, and Amity has been announced the queen. She’s sure to fail, and she’ll realise how much the human has weakened her.

Boscha goes to Grom alone. She watches Skara have fun with her date, and even Half a Witch Willow has someone to go with (Boscha pushes down the twinge of jealousy). It turns out Amity isn’t Grom Queen, it’s the human, who fails miserably, but Blight steps into help and they defeat the beast together, in an unforeseen display of ‘camaraderie and bravery’. Boscha thinks weakness and codependence is a better term.

Things fall apart even more. Willow, little old Half a Witch Willow, is getting popular. It’s Grudgby season, Boscha should be on top of the world, yet now she’s not even getting glances. So she doubles down her bullying efforts, except with a new target - Willow. She knows her grades are slipping even more, she knows her friend group is falling apart yet she doesn’t care - it’s all her fault. The weak, pathetic human is the reason for all this, and she and her friends need to pay.

They play Grudgby, and Boscha is certain she’ll win with Amelia and Cat by her side. There’s no way they don’t get through this, and finally put Half a Witch and the human back in their rightful places at the feet of the strong. But things don’t go to plan. Boscha gets overwhelmed, her teammates slip up, and they lose. They lose to Willow and the human and Amity of all people. It makes her blood boil.

The next day she snaps. She fights with Skara, her closest friend, and she leaves. They all do. They don’t like what she’s become, they say, the revenge fueled monster. She’s driven them away. It’s all the human’s fault. All her fault, right? She did this. She’s weak, she is the one who destroyed Boscha’s life, ruined her friendships and grades, and decimated everything she’s worked so hard for. She can’t be to blame for any of it, can she?

She doesn’t go to school the next day. Her parents don’t care, they’ve given up on her. She sits in her room and thinks about everything. On her life, on her goals, on her ambitions, and how they’ve all fallen apart. And, in her darkened room, Boscha asks herself a question - has her entire life been misguided? Has everything she’s ever done been in the wrong? Is she a bad person? Is she weak?

Yes. And if there’s one thing Boscha has known her entire life, it’s that those who are weak must pay.

.

It’s Boscha Preslow’s fifteenth birthday, and she’s a bad person. She knows this in her heart and in her soul. There’s a party outside, for her, but she stays in her room. Her parents don’t care, she’s a lost cause. A glass of wine sits on her desk, pinched from one of the adults. She’s had it before, but it still tastes weird every time. The sweet release is worth it. Boscha looks in the mirror. Her three eyes stare back, filled with hatred, and she knows what she has to do.

The razor slices across her wrist, careful and deliberate, unlike Boscha. Blood seeps out, pain and adrenaline course through Boscha’s veins, and she loves it. She needs this, needs to feel something, to make herself pay. She makes another incision, and feels the pain. This is what she deserves. Pain and suffering. It’s all she’s ever done to others, so it’s all she will get. She drinks the wine, blood still seeping from her wrist, and can feel the alcohol kicking in. Boscha Preslow passes out in her room on her fifteenth birthday with bloody wrists and a new hobby. She knows her parents won’t be happy, but she doesn’t care.


End file.
